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Why should the laser be only seen by the service judge and umpire? I think that horizontal wall of laser criss crossing should also be visible to spectators, like in those jewel heist movies where the protected area is covered with laser.

awesome idea.

we need to add a smoke machine, a scanning laser beam that projects a horizontal plane.

the service judge might not want to align his eye to the plane of service though. occupational hazard...

the nightvision goggles mentioned i read in a book called "No Easy Day" was worth $60,000USD each. the cheap nightvision goggles i've used for CQB with airsoft was only $3000USD. i would be scared to use the $60,000 goggles since it's worth a Mercedes!!!

If you want to fix the service point at 1.1m, you would need video replay like it is in Tennis, which has gotten it right. The service judge cannot be expected to be perfect but technology can help. Please install Hawkeye for all lines as well.

As for the debate on whether it advantages on being tall in badminton, because net is fixed at a certain height (who decided anyway) it rewards shorter players on flat drives and tall people on smashes. If you raise the height of the net then tall people would have advantage for sure.

Make a line onto the shirts of the players. Every player needs to get measured for that line at the beginning, just like the nets height is measured. This would be easily visible for the service judge. But that might interfere with strange pose some players do or players inventing new awkward pose to get the line on the T-shirt just a little bit higher. Watching Badminton via youtube I would say about 80% of every service struck is against the rules.

The December 2012 BWF council meeting has added the following rule change to the rule book. Note that this rule is listed as an EXPERIMENT. How they will go about experimenting it, I'm not sure of, but it tackles the definition of the waist line for service. It seems like they will test out a suggestion that some BC'ers have made. The experimental rule is:

The whole shuttle shall be below 1.10m (approx 3ft 7in. for us Americans) from the surface of the court at the instant of being hit by the server's racket.

So what are your opinions? How well do you think this experiment will be; will it be a future permanent addition to the rulebook?

The December 2012 BWF council meeting has added the following rule change to the rule book. Note that this rule is listed as an EXPERIMENT. How they will go about experimenting it, I'm not sure of, but it tackles the definition of the waist line for service. It seems like they will test out a suggestion that some BC'ers have made. The experimental rule is:

The whole shuttle shall be below 1.10m (approx 3ft 7in. for us Americans) from the surface of the court at the instant of being hit by the server's racket.

So what are your opinions? How well do you think this experiment will be; will it be a future permanent addition to the rulebook?

Edit: I measured myself according to this new service rule, I'm 5' 7", from the old definition of lowest rib, I get an extra inch to serve now

Many years ago, there was the used of a vision card where the service judge would view through the slit window for service faults. The top edge of the slit is approximately align to waiste level and if the shuttle is not seen, its deem to high and would be a fault service. Perhaps the same can be use for this application.

I've got a really radical idea. Why dont we leave it up to players to serve at the correct height? If at the end of the match they are found to be serving illegally then they are thrown out of the tournament, fined or the coaches fined. It seems "win at any cost" is becoming more common so instead of badminton tournament organisers having to pay a lot of money for things like hawkeye, which if impemented will slow the game down, or use a fixed height, which will change habits of all players, why not put the onus back on the players?.

I've got a really radical idea. Why dont we leave it up to players to serve at the correct height? If at the end of the match they are found to be serving illegally then they are thrown out of the tournament, fined or the coaches fined. It seems "win at any cost" is becoming more common so instead of badminton tournament organisers having to pay a lot of money for things like hawkeye, which if impemented will slow the game down, or use a fixed height, which will change habits of all players, why not put the onus back on the players?.

That's actually a nice idea! However, I suppose the innocents will also get slaughtered with the mischief-makers. Its fair to assume there would be times when a player goes marginally illegal without knowing it -a hitch, a nervous tic, anything- and he gets penalized beyond just a point being taken away.... ouch! I can see it happening more often in doubles.

On another note, but related to this thread... if anything gets implemented that has serious punishment attached, I can see many of the players taking longer to prepare to serve... in some cases, this might get pretty painful - you could possibly even throw in a quick commercial break there!

That's actually a nice idea! However, I suppose the innocents will also get slaughtered with the mischief-makers. Its fair to assume there would be times when a player goes marginally illegal without knowing it -a hitch, a nervous tic, anything- and he gets penalized beyond just a point being taken away.... ouch! I can see it happening more often in doubles.

On another note, but related to this thread... if anything gets implemented that has serious punishment attached, I can see many of the players taking longer to prepare to serve... in some cases, this might get pretty painful - you could possibly even throw in a quick commercial break there!

I think service judges are getting better. Maybe they just need more training. TBH service faults are few and far between plus there's no reason for a player to take longer. If anything the time it takes most players to serve isnt long. Nowadays players serve very quickly. If there are repeat offenders then they should be scrutinized more and spoken to by the
Umpires.

Another idea is to have 3 strikes and then you receive a heavier penalty.

I do not know about that. There isn't really much information on it. I do know that an experiment period is for 6 months usually. By July, they will have another GCR meeting and decide whether it will be permanent or they will take it out.

Sounds like a great idea, at least they are attempting to address the situation so well done. The first thing that comes to mind though is some of the tall Russian lads are going to be hitting from wayyy down and on the other side of it some of the Asian girls will be able to serve from neck height. In conclusion I think shorter players will probably gain an unfair advantage.

I agree, this rule would play too big a role favouring and limiting respective players. The current rule is good, exactly because it makes the serve indivudually specific. Whether you are tall or short gives you respective (dis)advantages. All of us have got to learn how to handle and use these.

Furthermore I think that to specify an exact height of service is going to take away the feel that comes with the personal serve height. This would be my main argument against this new rule.

I agree, this rule would play too big a role favouring and limiting respective players. The current rule is good, exactly because it makes the serve indivudually specific. Whether you are tall or short gives you respective (dis)advantages. All of us have got to learn how to handle and use these.

Furthermore I think that to specify an exact height of service is going to take away the feel that comes with the personal serve height. This would be my main argument against this new rule.

this is the rule re the service height.

9.1.5 the whole shuttle shall be below the server’s waist at the instant of being hit by the server’s
racket. The waist shall be considered to be an imaginary line round the body, level with the
lowest part of the server’s bottom rib

how on earth it's good as it based on an "imaginary line" that by definition nobody can see nor verify?

With sufficiently well-designed equipment for service judges, a fixed height should be much easier to judge; and potentially (if badminton had the money for it...) this could perhaps be automated.

But what about club play? How the hell are we going to guess how high 110 cm is, with no service judge and no fixed point of reference?

Using the net for reference doesn't work, because of parallax issues: the apparent height of any net marker on the server's body will change depending on the height of the receiver's eye. And since the receiver's eye is much higher than 110 cm, you get a lot of parallax.

The current waist/elbow reference isn't easy either, but at least you can largely ignore parallax.

With sufficiently well-designed equipment for service judges, a fixed height should be much easier to judge; and potentially (if badminton had the money for it...) this could perhaps be automated.

But what about club play?

Your correct it will not work very well at club play, just like line calls, scoops, net obstruction, current service laws and even wrongly scoring from time to time. None of them work amazingly at club play level so no point in discouraging the new rule for that point.